Backhouse was born and raised in the Thorntree district of Middlesbrough, an industrial town in the north-east of England. In 1959, he won a place at the then all-male Acklam Hall Grammar School before going on to Churchill College, Cambridge, in 1966. His doctorate (Ph.D.) was completed under the supervision of Jim Cunningham at Imperial College London.
Backhouse is married to Hilary, née Mitchell. They have three sons, Kevin, Andrew, and David.
Academic interests
His research interests lie in the mathematics of program construction and algorithmic problem solving. Together with Jan L. A. van de Snepscheut (1953—1994), he began the biennial series of conferences on the Mathematics of Program Construction, the first of which was held in 1989.
Backhouse, Roland (1979). Syntax of programming languages. Prentice-Hall International series in computer science. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall International. ISBN978-0-13-879999-1.
Books edited
Backhouse, Roland; Gibbons, Jeremy; Hinze, Ralph; Jeuring, Johan, eds. (2007). Datatype-generic programming: international spring school, SSDGP 2006, Nottingham, UK 24–27 April 2006, revised lectures. International Spring School on Datatype-Generic Programming. Berlin: Springer. ISBN978-3-540-76785-5.
Backhouse, Roland; Gibbons, Jeremy, eds. (2003). Generic programming: advanced lectures [lectures presented at a Summer School on Generic Programming held at the University of Oxford in August 2002]. Berlin: Springer. ISBN978-3-540-20194-6.
Backhouse, Roland; Crole, Roy L.; Gibbons, Jeremy, eds. (2002). Algebraic and coalgebraic methods in the mathematics of program construction: international summer school and workshop Oxford, UK, 10–14 April 2000, revised lectures. Berlin; New York: Springer. ISBN978-3-540-43613-3.
Backhouse, Roland; Oliveira, Jose N., eds. (2000). Mathematics of Program Construction 2000. Berlin; New York: Springer. ISBN978-3-540-67727-7.
Selected papers
Backhouse, R. C.; Carre, B. A. (1975). "Regular algebra applied to path-finding problems". Journal of the Institute of Mathematics and Its Applications. 15 (2): 161–186. doi:10.1093/imamat/15.2.161.
Backhouse, R.; Jansson, P.; Jeuring, J.; et al. (1999). "Generic Programming". Advanced Functional Programming [Conference Information: 3rd International School on Advanced Functional Programming (AFP 98),12–19 September 1998 Braga Portugal]. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 1608. pp. 28–115. doi:10.1007/10704973_2. ISBN978-3-540-66241-9.
Backhouse, R. (2002). "Galois Connections and Fixed Point Calculus". Algebraic and Coalgebraic Methods in the Mathematics of Program Construction [Conference Information: International Summer School and Workshop on Algebraic and Coalgebraic Methods in the Mathematics of Program Construction, Date: 10–14 April 2000 University of Oxford, Oxford, England]. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 2297. pp. 89–148. CiteSeerX10.1.1.108.2022. doi:10.1007/3-540-47797-7_4. ISBN978-3-540-43613-3.
Doornbos, H.; Backhouse, R. (1996). "Reductivity" [Conference Information: 3rd International Conference on the Mathematics of Program Construction, Date: 17–21 July 1995 Kloster Irsee Germany]. Science of Computer Programming. 26 (1–3): 217–236. doi:10.1016/0167-6423(95)00027-5.